Wednesday, December 12, 2007

These are the BEST cookies. They are from Slavonia, where my father's family is from.

Here is the English translation (the Croatian is to the right).1.3 cups sugar1.3 cups butter3 egg yokes (yellows of eggs)1 whole egg4 large tablespoons of honey (use the best quality honey you can acquire as honey has an important influence on the taste of the cookies)2 grains of clove, ground (use the back of a strong, broad knife to crush it)2 grains of pepper, ground1 lemon peel, gratedflour - as needed, so the dough is hardMix the sugar and egg until creamy, then add the butter and mix till creamy, then the flower, then the rest of the ingredients. Mix until the dough is very hard.Roll the dough out with a rolling pin to a width of 0.7cm (as fat as a finger) and press down with the papernjak mold (pictured to the right). Remove the mold and cut out the individual cookies. Put the cookies in the oven to bake on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, at 375 for 10 to 15 minutes. Use the middle rack of the oven. You can roll the cookies on the parchment paper as well, if you find it difficult to transfer them from the counter to the baking sheet (bottom photos is baked papernjaci).I can't wait to go to my parent's and make these (my mold is there)! Sretan Bozic i sve naj naj!

Tools: I used the lovely Bosch stand mixer you see in the photo, which my parents gave me as an early birthday present (December 23). A hand mixer will also work. Mixing with a wooden spoon would work as well. I guess you would need to use a wisk to cream the butter and sugar, in that case.Directions:The Dough:Mix the butter and sugar until creamy. Probably use middle speed. Add vanilla. Mix until well integrated. Add the flower, a spoon full at at time, on low speed. Mix until it forms a solid mass. Slowly add the ground walnuts. When the walnuts are all integrated, stop mixing. Take the dough out and make a ball out of it. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 3 hours, or put it in the freezer for about 2 hours. It is nice to prepare the dough and refrigerate it overnight. The dough needs to be a solid, hard mass.

The baking:Heat the over to 350 Fahrenheit, which is about 175 c, for those of you in Zagreb, Osijek, Vienna, Graz ... Toronto, and VancouverLine a cookie baking sheet with parchment paper.Pinch off some of the dough. Roll it between your hands, specifically palm-side of your knuckles, to make it into a tube shape. When it is ready, it should be about the length of your index finger, thinner than your pinky. Lay it on the parchment paper in the shape of a horse shoe.Keep all of the kifle the same thickness and length so the batch bakes evenly. I hope the photos are instructive about the size and shape of kiflice.

Bake for about 10 or 15 mintues at 350f, 175c, until slightly brown on the top. My oven took 15 minutes. The ones in the photo are pretty good.Take them out, let them cool off. When they are cool and you are ready to serve, dust them with the powdered sugar.

Store them in a tin can or in a plastic box - anything with a good seal - in the cupboard. They keep very well in the cupboard (no eggs in the dough). They freeze very well. Children enjoy making them because they role them with their hands and that is cool. It isn't very messy either, maybe put a plate under their hands to catch crumbs when they roll the cookies.

For your convenience, here is a kitchen conversion web site in which you can ask for the conversion of weights and measures of specific ingredients used in the kitchen (convert-me.com).

And we ate a few, drank wine, then later some tea, and laughed quite a bit. Today, we had our first snowfall in Urbana. Very nice. The year will come to an end quite soon. The days are short, and cold, it is the time of lights, we can celebrate living through another year, and hope for what will come the next. Peace on Earth.